AE Basics 4: Importing Photoshop Documents (PSDs)

AE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 4: In this fourth tutorial, Andrew Devis goes over the options After Effects gives you for importing Photoshop documents. When you try and import a Photoshop document, After Effects gives you a dialogue box with several options. Andrew looks at those options so that you get exactly what you want from your Photoshop document when you bring it into After Effects.

AE Basics 1: Workspaces in Adobe After EffectsPlay VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 1: In this first tutorial, Andrew Devis introduces After Effects workspaces - how to modify, save, reset and delete them - as well as showing how to move panels around to create a custom workspace just the way you want it!

AE Basics 10: Transforms - Fixed EffectsPlay VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 10: In this next tutorial, Andrew Devis shows how to select, understand and use the 'transforms' or 'Fixed Effects' that are automatically added to every layer in your composition.

AE Basics 11: Animation 1 - Creating KeyframesPlay VideoAE Basics: A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 11: In this introductory tutorial to the process of animation in After Effects, Andrew Devis explains and demonstrates how to animate a property in After Effects using Keyframes and interpolation.

AE Basics 12: Animation 2 - Easing KeyframesPlay VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 12: In this second tutorial on the process of animation in After Effects, Andrew Devis explains how to make your animations look far better through the process of adding the appearance of weight to your assets. This is done through a change to your keyframes called 'easing,' which causes the keyframes to change their default behaviour to give much more realistic and real world animation. As well as showing how to add easing to your animation, Andrew also introduces the graph editor to show how to change the values of eased keyframes.

AE Basics 13: Motion Paths Part 1 - The BasicsPlay VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 13: In this tutorial, Andrew Devis explains the basics of motion paths and how to modify them for use in your animations, along with some hints and tips to get the best results with as little effort as possible. Andrew also shows how to change the default viewing of points and handles on a motion path so that they can more easily be selected and manipulated and how to ensure that your animated item auto-orients along the path for excellent results.

AE Basics 14: Motion Paths Part 2 - Additional ToolsPlay VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 14: In this second tutorial on motion paths, Andrew Devis introduces a couple of useful panels for automatic creation of motion paths and automatic smoothing of keyframes to give a better result. These two panels can be used together to create and then smooth keyframes in a motion path simply and quickly to save both time and effort!

AE Basics 15: Motion Paths Part 3 - Masks & PathsPlay VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 15: In this third and final tutorial on motion paths, Andrew Devis demonstrates how to use masks and paths created in other applications or in other ways in After Effects to drive both the creation of items and the animation of items. Andrew also shows how to extend the default animation length so that it matches your composition, finishing with animating a lens flare through a picture with an open path created on that same layer.

AE Basics 16: ParentingPlay VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 16: In this tutorial, Andrew Devis introduces parenting in After Effects and shows how complex animations can be created with very few keyframes by using parenting. Andrew also shows how parenting can be used to follow an already animated layer as well as how to set up an animation to save a great deal of time.

AE Basics 17: Shape Layers Part 1Play VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 17: In this first tutorial on Shape Layers in After Effects, Andrew Devis starts by showing the difference between masks created on a layer and shape layers and then goes on to show how to create multiple shapes on a single layer and how to change their appearance and animate them independently to each other even though they are still on the same layer.

AE Basics 18: Shape Layers Part 2 - Gradients & PropertiesPlay VideoAE Basics - A Creative COW series for new users of Adobe After Effects. Lesson 18: In the second tutorial on Shape Layers in After Effects, Andrew Devis starts to look a little more in depth at some of the fill and stroke options for shapes layers -- and in particular at how to create custom gradients. He also looks at the standard animation properties that come with shape layers helping us to create and animate complex and organic shapes very quickly.